Since Saturday, Internet users have been interested in detention the Polish journalist Rafał Ziemkiewicz at Heathrow airport (London) and sending him back to the country. “As it turns out, I am rather lucky, because according to the law, the Border Guard could keep me in deportation arrest for any length of time,” said Ziemkiewicz today in an interview with Tomasz Sakiewicz on TV Republika.
Rafał Ziemkiewicz was detained yesterday at the UK’s Heathrow airport, where, after several hours of procedures including a body search and document retrieval, he was refused entry to the UK and ordered to leave the country. Today, the publicist was a guest of Tomasz Sakiewicz in the “Political coffee” program (Polityczna kawa) on the TV Republika.
“I came back yesterday. As it turns out, I’m rather lucky because, according to law, the Border Guards could keep me in deportation arrest for any length of time,” said Ziemkiewicz at the outset.
The journalist was surprised that according to British services, his private visit to the UK would in any way affect the security of the whole country.
“I was deluded for 1.5 hours that they had some problem with my passport because they had a new system and my data wasn’t loading, which was likely. So, I was assured that another 5-10 minutes and they would give me my passport back. Eventually, they all disappeared, nothing happened for almost 2 hours. As far as I know, the consul undertaking the intervention was also lied to,” said Ziemkiewicz.
The journalist also described a conversation with an immigration officer who first asked him some obvious questions to which he already knew the answers:
“Due to my political views, I won’t be allowed in any way, so he advises me to take my passport, rebook my ticket and come back, then they won’t make an issue of it, there will be no notes in the papers. “
“Anyway, there were no questions. There was just this good advice for me to go,” he added.